SOC 2070 Test Review

Theories are not excuses but are modes of explanations

Theories, explanation and prediction

You don’t have to look at the spiritual theories

Objectivist theories

• Deviance is inherent

• Assessment of behavior and it is objectively deviant

• Harm, rarity, reaction, norms/values

• Eg, merton's anomie, differential association, techniques of neutralization

• Deviance is self evident

• He will ask which of the following theories are objectivist on the test

Subjectivist theories

• Deviance as a social construct

• Its deviant because its been labeled as such

• Eg. labeling theory, conflict, postmodernism

Micro vs macro

• Micro theories are almost entirely focused on the interactions between individual

  • Sutherland

  • Symbolic interactionism

• Macro are looking at entire social systems

  • Durkheim

• Meso

  • Somewhere in the middle

Durkheim

• Macro and functionalist

• Know your functions of deviance

  • 4 types

  • Amplifies social solidarity

  • Reduces social tension

  • Others

• Eg. description of event and identify which function it is

• Mechanical vs organic solidarity

  • Don't stress too much on this

• Deviance and social integration

  • Suicide types

    • Know them

    • Different types of suicide

Merton

• Macro and functionalist

• Very similar to durkheim

• Broad social systems and anomie

• Adapting and deviance

• Goals and legitimate means

  • Modes of adaptation

• Ritualist, retreatist, innovation, etc.

• Know critiques

  • Different cultural goals

  • One mode vs another

• Deviance and social integration

  • More social system

  • Goals and means in a society integrated

• Robinson, mutual exclusivity

  • Conformist and innovator at the same time

Differential association

• Micro theory

• Objectivist

• Deviance is learned

• Opportunity, rank order, and receptivity

  • Critique

  • Wasn’t addressed

  • Without opportunity one can not be deviant

  • Which is most important

  • Some people are more influenced by their peers

• Frequency, duration, priority and intensity

Techniques of neutralization

• Objectivist and micro

• Drift, guilt, and 5 neutralizations

• Denial of responsibility

• Relationship to sutherland

• Critiques

  • Hard core offenders without guilty

  • Nothing to neutralize

• Neutralization vs rationalization

  • Before or after?

Hirschi control/bond theory

• Objectivist and meso?

• Flipping the question

• Social integration

• Critiques

  • Disposition to serious crime

  • Weak controls 

    • Before or after

Subjectivist and interpretive approaches

• Labeling theory

  • Origins

    • Symbolic interaction and the self

  • Self identity and sense of self

  • Primary and secondary deviance

    • Stickiness of label

    • Secondary causes internalization

  • Master status, outsider, opportunities, self-fulfilling prophecy

• Goffman

  • Label and stigma

  • Manage label/stigma

    • Pressure to manage it

  • Tertiary deviance

  • Resist stigma

    • Biographic and symbolic information control

      • Biographic; dedication to not telling people about your personal history

      • Symbolic; appearance doesn’t share your stigma

  • Critiques

    • Initial cause of deviance?

    • Why did u deviate to begin with

    • Isolating the label

• Conflict theory

  • Macro and subjective

  • Law and powerful interests

  • Ideology

  • Marxist conflict theory basics

    • Instrumental vs structural

  • Critiques

    • Victimizations surveys

      • Not lashing out at upper class, they victimize each other

    • Benevolent laws

      • Protect us all; not always enforced

    • Revolution and practicality

      • Doesn't really happen

      • Need a solution now

Deviant subcultures

• Cohen's theory of subcultures

• Emerge when people have a problem that needs solving

  • People come together

• A problem and normal

  • Logical outcome of the system with unequal opportunity

• Characteristics

  • Norms and values, status, regulated membership, ambivalence

Argot vs jargon

• Argot is secretive and jargon is not

• Argot and group identity

• Facilitates subcultural relations

• Status and position inside

• Status and position relative to outside

Subjectivist and objectivist

• Objectivist the qualities of deviance are inherent

• Subjectivism is that something is deviant because it was labeled as such

• It's not about personal values or what “feels right”

• Which perspective is more scientifically correct

• Assess the validity

• It doesn’t depend on the deviance

• Hybrid approach (this is what I did lol)

  • Norms and values in a given culture are observable

  • The norms only exist because we defined them this way

Durkheim and merton

• Objectivists, functionalists and deviance as normal

• Durkheim and anomic condition

• Both believe when the system breaks down anomie happens

• Modes of adaptation

• Deviance is expected when a society does not function properly

  • Its predictable

• Differences

  • Point of research emphasis was quite different

  • Deviant behavior itself the only difference is merton was american and focussed on crime and social deviance

Durkheim

• Anomie and suicide

• Various types

  • All about integration

  • Egoistic

    • Lack of social integration with groups and orgs

    • Behavior isn't regulated by expectations of the group or societies norms and values

  • Altruistic

    • A martyr

    • Profound dedication to group

  • Anomic

    • Widespread social deregulation because of rapid social change

    • You feel normless because change is happening so fast you don’t know where to align yourself

    • War is widespread and everything is collapsing and you feel anomic

  • Fatalistic

    • Society controls you, no way out

    • You give up

    • Someone in jail for the rest of your life

  • Would likely test this by showing an example and asking which of these it is (sounds like it might be anomic lol)

Primary vs secondary deviance

• Primary

  • Violation of norms, usually not serious

  • Act recognized but deemed isolated

  • Act doesn’t define the person's sense of self; not internalized

• Secondary

  • Persistent and serious

  • A threat

  • Stronger reaction and consistent labeling

  • Label is internalized

  • Status and roles organized around deviant identity

  • Conventional opportunities limited

Sykes and matza's techniques of neutralization

• What was it about Sutherland's theory of differential association that concerned sykes and matza so much?

  • Answer: sutherlands work implied juvenile delinquents embraced only deviant norms

    • They neutralize the guilt allowing them to drift and out

• Denial of responsibility; something forced you to do it “I grew up in a bad neighborhood”

• Denial of injury

• Denial of victim

• Appeal to higher loyalties 

• Condemning the condemners

Tewksbury (2012) work on sex offenders

• Interpretivist unit

• Core argument

  • Stigma, stress, and re-offending

  • Stress in jail and reputation increases probability of reoffending

• Core concepts

  • Uses goffman

  • Virtual identity and actual identity

  • The locus is in the difference between virtual and actual identities

    • Virtual how you are known by other

    • Actual how you see yourself

    • If these are almost the same then you are less stressed

    • If they are far apart you face stigma and stress

Stigma management

• Resisting and managing

• Biographical and symbolic informational control

  • Biographic is hiding information 

  • Symbolic is hiding something physical

    • Alter behavior or appearance; how you look

• Tertiary deviance

  • A group of like minded people resisting labels and stigma of somebody else or themselves

  • Change the way people think about a kind of behavior

    • Eg. gay rights movement

  • Kitsuse

  • Deviant 

Labeling theory

• Positive effects of labeling

  • Therapeutic, personal growth, interpersonal opportunities

Marxists conflict theory

• Legitimacy versus ideology

• Ideology as common sense

  • Powerful earned wealth

  • System has equal opportunity

• Capitalism is then rarely contested

Subcultures

• Goth subculture article

  • Core argument: targeted harassment/stigmatization and identity

  • Overlaps with cohen’s theory

• Ebaugh on leaving roles and subcultures

  • First doubts

    • Cuing (dropping hints to people around you looking for positive or negative response – advances or slows down the process) →

  • Seeking and weighing alternatives

  • Turning points

  • Establishing ex-identity

• Holt et al. work on online pedophile subcultures

  • Core argument: internet offers belonging, less stigma, etc.

  • Core concepts: the 4 normative orders (remember these)

    • Marginalization (realization they are different and were intolerant), law (what you can say, do, pictures you can collect), security (on the look out for cops and being busted), sexuality (environment to explore sexuality with attracting attention)

    • Principles of behavior

• Ambivalence; not liking people on the outside

• Online subcultures

  • Anonymity and the liberated self, ephemeral membership, interactions less mitigated by space and time

  • Cohens ideas and consistency in online subcultures

Social constructionism; why do we define some things as a problem and certain types of problems

• Eg. why is drinking and driving an individual problem not a technology problem

Herbert Blumer (1971)

• The problem with objectivism

• Adopt a subjectivist view

  • Goes from nothing to a social problem overtime

  • We analyze after they’ve been defined

    • Your late, start analyzing before

Core concepts for this

• Claims-makers

  • People who convince you something is a social problem

  • Rhetoric, charisma, connections, resources

  • Primary and secondary

    • Primary was involved; experienced the deviance directly (first hand experience)

      • Primary and authenticity

    • Secondary is like an ally; aware but didn’t experience it

      • Eg. investigative reporter

    • Hierarchy of claims-making

      • You could sort claims makers by effectiveness

  • Claims making as a competition

    • Competing to capture societies attention, support, and money

    • Want to shape your construction of reality; definition of reality to match theirs

  • Successful claims making

    • Salience

      • Convince people the topic is relevant and demands your attention

    • scope/size

      • How big is the problem; statistics and rhetoric to give the impression that the problem is huge

    • Morality

      • Distinction between good and evil

      • Moral component

    • Good victim and villain

      • Victim appears innocent and to be absolutely not complicit in their own victimization

      • Villain needs to morally repugnant and evil

    • Call to action

      • Something for people to do

  • Claims making industry

    • Our economy is driven by claims makers

    • Vested interest and promoting the problem

    • Ownership

      • When you think of problem they immediately come to mind

      • The problem and the organization are synonymous

        • Eg. drinking and driving and MADD

Traditional media

• Social and organizational factors

• Meets the organizational needs

  • Revenue

    • Talking about certain problems generates more revenue and promoted faster

  • Newsworthiness

    • Dramatic, interesting, anything that captures attention

  • Time and space

    • Space on a newspaper was expensive

    • Time spent on the radio costs money

    • Things people could talk about quickly 

  • Sources

    • Rely on investigative reporting but that was to expensive

    • Problems that can avoid the use of investigative reporting get promoted

Digital media (news 2.0)

• Citizen journalists

  • Anyone can become a claims maker

  • Constraints? Hierarchy?

    • Don’t need to worry about a boss for promoting the problem

  • Inexpensive and simple

  • Speed and reach

  • Challenge power and authority structures

    • Eg. mynypd

What about the truth?

• Are social problems not real?

  • Some say yea all of it is a social construction

  • Others disagree

  • Contextual constructionism

    • People understand there is a real world with real struggles but still think about claims makers

  • Strict constructionists

    • Truly believe nothing is a real problem they are just constructed

Deviant bodies

• I don't need to review the history about tattoos

• Goffman and stigma

  • Stigma is a attribute that is discrediting and that interrupts social relationships

  • Can be a blemish of character or bodily appearance 

  • Bodily appearance comes in the form of physical incapacity (size stops you from participating in normal activity) and violation of aesthetic norms 

  • Bodily appearance can make someone believe that the person also has a blemish of character

  • Bodily appearance three dimensions:

    • Physical incapacity

    • Violation of aesthetic norms

    • Blemish of character

  • European middle ages 450-1450 AD)

    • Physical disability, christianity, and the devil

    • Church and control

    • If you were born blind or with a disability society believed you had the devil in you

  • Late 19th to mid 20th century science and global eugenics

    • Certain bodies were so horrible they had to be eliminated

      • Eg. hitler

  • Physically disabled bodies remained stigmatized

    • Normals and social distance (goode, 2015)

      • Social distance scales

    • Why stigmatization

      • Normal bodies as cultural construct

      • Existential anxiety

        • Disabled bodies stress normal people because they fear they could end up like that

        • How vulnerable their own body is

Managing stigmatization

• Deflection

  • Kindness, cheerfulness to shift peoples attention to a different quality

• Cloak of competence

  • Deliberately emphasize they are still functional and capable of normal activities

Managing stigmatization of blemish of character

• Disabled bodies being accused of taking advantage of the system

  • Disidentify

    • People will go out of their way to tell the stigmatizer of the real nature of their disability to distance themselves from the negative stereotypes

  • Advocacy

    • Frustrated and try to radically transform your construction of reality to fend of the stigma (more aggressive)

Modified bodies

• Transition from deviant to not deviant

• For some (older people) tattoos are still deviant

  • Stigma by association, body as sacred, resistant femininity

Obese bodies

• The ideal/deviant distinction and media

  • Media and ideal body type

  • Similarity to ideal media body related to body satisfaction among women

  • Basically the less you look like the depiction of beauty on social media the worse you will feel about your body (body dissatisfaction)

• Highly stigmatized

  • Physical incapacity, violation of aesthetic norms, blemish of character

    • You caused this and it's your fault, making it a blemish of character

    • Cognitive jump from not liking the body to not liking the brain

• Mechanisms of social control

  • Media and its messaging about the ideal body

  • Medicalization (ozempic lol)

  • Individualized and self-regulation

    • The solution is your problem and something you need to fix

Deviant minds

• Interpreting mental illness as deviant

  • Stigma comprises three dimensions

    • Unintelligibility (significance of intelligibility meta rule)

      • The widespread assumption that everything someone says should be logical and wait for a correction of unintelligibility

        • If they don’t we get nervous

    • Incompetence and lack of credibility

      • Vast majority this is untrue with CMD

    • Violence

      • Causes a lot of social distancing

      • Data proves this false (particularly with CMD and medication)

  • Pop Culture and exacerbating the issue

  • Why stigmatize

    • power/status

    • Evolved mechanism that used to keep us safe

      • Other species do it too

• Torture to treatment for mentally ill (erving goffman and asylums)

  • The total institution (his ideal concept)

    • Strip sense of self and degradation

    • Control movements and mind

    • Needs of the institutions prioritized over patient needs

  • Critique to our culture

• Scheff's labeling theory

  • Argues mental health isn’t real

  • The label creates the illness

  • A powerful doctor convinces people they are sick and they internalize the label over and over again until they become sick

  • Drew attention to the influence of power and authority

  • Deemed untrue

• Bruce link modified labeling theory

  • Mental illness is real and causes suffering (the label doesn’t cause it)

  • The label compounds things and tell the patient that society will reject them

    • Causes the patient to change behavior – distancing, being shy, being weird– making the behavior progressively weirder and impacting their mental health

• Resisting the stigma

  • The discreditable

    • Not yet discredited

    • Through informational control and passing

  • Own vs wise

    • Hang around people with similar problems (own)

    • Hang around people who understand (wise)

  • Deflection and challenging

    • Say the illness isn’t fundamental to who they are

    • Righteously correct your world view about how you feel about mental illness